Note: Super short filler chapter! Sorry about the length! :-)

Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter.

23: The Summons

"Merlin," Remus Lupin mumbled as he stepped back into the sitting room, shuffling the envelopes in his hands so that he could look at each one in turn. "Five owls and we were barely out the house an hour..."

From where she sat hunched upon the sofa, staring blankly into the empty fireplace opposite, his wife said nothing.

Remus eyed her warily for a moment before going to sit beside her, sighing heavily.

"They're all from the Ministry." he said, and when Dora failed to so much as glance sideways at him he sighed again and set about breaking the seal on the first envelope. Retrieving the parchment within, the werewolf unfolded the first letter, squinting down at the elaborate script.

There was a long pause as he examined the letter, and at the sound of him fumbling to hastily rip open the next one with an incoherent mutter that sounded distinctly worried, Dora finally consented to looking sideways at him.

"What is it?" she asked as he brow furrowed at the contents of the next letter, scanning the page before reaching for another.

"Oh Dora..."

"What?"

"Oh Merlin..."

"What, Remus?!"

The latest letter he was examining became somewhat crumbled as Remus' grip upon it tightened. He turned slowly in his seat to face his wife, regarding her seriously for a long moment, before slowly reaching to press a palm to her cheek.

"Listen, darling..." he began slowly, reluctantly even, only to wince when she jerked her head away from his touch and demanded:

"Don't you bloody listen darling me!"

"Dora, please..."

"It was...it was bad enough just now without you...without you getting all bloody patronising too!"

"I'm not trying to be patronising..."

"Aren't you?!"

"Of course not!"

"Just like you weren't trying to treat me like some sort of...some sort of child earlier, either!"

"You're being ridiculous, Dora."

"You DISARMED me, Remus! You disarmed me and...and frog marched me home like some sort of...of scolded schoolgirl! I mean...for the love of Merlin! Who the bloody hell DISARMS THEIR OWN WIFE?! In front of a bloody MALFOY!"

"You were being hysterical..."

"You thought I was going to hex her, didn't you?!"

"No..."

"LIAR!"

"I truly didn't think anything of the sort."

"Then why disarm me?!"

"You weren't listening to me..."

"So that's the perfect reason to...to humiliate me in...in front of HER, is it?!"

"You can't honestly care what she thinks..."

"That's not the point!"

"But it's the only point you've made so far..." Remus trailed off rather helplessly as the witch sprung furiously to her feet, rounding on him to demand:

"Give it back!"

"S...sorry?"

"My wand, Remus! Give it back!"

Reaching slowly into his pocket to retrieve the item in question, Remus found himself wondering:

"Are you going to hex me with it?"

In response the wand was jerked free from his hand by an invisible force that made his finger sting sharply, and within the blink of an eye Dora had caught the soaring object, turned and fled out into the hallway. A moment later he heard her footsteps as she stomped up the stairs to take refuge in their bedroom.

He examined the remaining letters grimly for a few minutes before abandoning them all on the coffee table and following his wife upstairs. The bedroom was somewhat dim in comparison to the rest of the house, they had left the curtains drawn firmly across the windows in their haste to leave the house earlier that day.

She felt the mattress shift underneath her as he sunk down onto the bed behind her, and after a few tentative pauses she felt him reach to slide an arm around her waist, his lips coming to brush against her ear.

"Forgive me." he whispered, and she might very well have granted his request instantly if she hadn't been so utterly determined to punish him...

Because she felt an all-consuming desire to punish somebody...anybody...

...and he was there. That was reason enough. It was cruel, it was undeniably wrong, and yet she was so utterly despairing of the world that any excuse to feel anger seemed like something to cling on to.

She tried to jerk away from him, only for his careful arm around her to tighten, pulling her back until she was pressed against him, his face buried in her hair.

"Please." he murmured, and when she continued to struggle he wondered: "Why are you so intent on fighting with me?"

"Why are you so intent on restraining me?" she shot back, and at this accusation he promptly pulled his arm free, flopping back against the duvet, reaching to press his hands to his eyes.

She hadn't meant it quite that literally, she supposed, and she missed his hold upon her as soon as it was gone. But she couldn't tell him, couldn't move, could barely think...

"Perhaps, my darling," the wizard finally managed to utter a long moment later, "I wouldn't be so inclined to do so if you might for once choose to restrain yourself."

"Perhaps we don't all have such a ridiculously tight reign upon our emotions as you do!" she complained, grasping fistfuls of duvet in her frustration. "Perhaps the rest of us are more prone to...to outbursts! Perhaps we can't keep our anger under wraps! Perhaps there comes a...a time when the world's just been...been too cruel and we can't hold it in any longer!"

To her fury, her husband gave a huff of laughter at this suggestion and muttered:

"Then perhaps you've been blind to me for all these years."

A lump instantly lodged itself in her throat, and she very nearly flinched when a moment later she felt his hand upon her shoulder, pulling her carefully down to lie upon her back.

"And that is terribly ironic, I think." he told her as he leaned to gaze thoughtfully down at her, his warm eyes pinning her to the spot. "Because any control I ever had over my emotions was entirely obliterated the moment I met you."

And despite herself she found herself reaching a hand up to tangle in his hair and she struggled not to screw her eyes shut in shame when he leant to brush a kiss to her lips, confessing:

"One single word from you, Nymphadora, one single glance, even! One tear, one frown, one sigh, my darling, and you can ignite such fire in me that I would set the world alight and watch it burn!"

Merlin, she realised rather dumbly, she had no idea how to respond to that. What so say when she'd been so cruel and yet he'd spoken so sweetly like only he could. She'd never met anyone so bold or elaborate with language as him. He could strike her dumb with words at the drop of a hat and she'd be at a loss as to what to say in return...

"Why are you being so good to me?" she whispered a long moment later once he had leant to kiss her again.

"Why would I not be? You are my wife, are you not? I love you, don't I?"

"I've been unspeakable cruel."

He stifled another huff of amusement against her lips, hand reaching to smooth her hair before he admitted:

"Then I love you unconditionally, Dora. I am unconditionally, undeniably and uncontrollably in love with you! You can be as cruel and hurtful to me as you like, you can make my life unbearably miserable, I won't waver in my love for even a second."

She thought she might hate him with a passion just then for making her feel so unbearably wretched, and yet love him with a passion for precisely the same reason. It was a frustrating tangle of feelings and she realised just then that taking her anger out on Remus was an entirely futile endeavour. He would never react in a satisfying manner, he would never grow angry in response, never snap back in retaliation and let the whole furious scenario escalate until she could scream and shout and let the flood of anger out in a rush that might just let her feel human again...

He would only speak of loving her with steadfast conviction, and the most heated response she could coax from him was a series of fierce kisses that left her lungs burning for air and her mind comfortably fuzzy. She found she had little choice but to kiss him back and her fury seemed to be ebbing away into nothing, the world and its cruelties seemed suddenly absent and there was only the two of them and his lips upon hers. By the time he saw fit to release her a long while later, leaving them both breathless, dishevelled and both in need of a fresh set of less crumpled clothes, Dora found she felt oddly...serene...

"She's got it in for us." Remus told her as he shifted underneath the sheets, and Dora only briefly wondered quite how they had managed to curl up underneath them so unconsciously before she asked:
"Who?"

"Geraldine Flemming."

"Oh..."

"She thinks we could have set all of this up to...to get Teddy away from the investigations. We've both received summons to the Ministry..."

"Oh..."

"Harry wrote to try and warn us...even Kingsley's concerned..."

"Merlin..."

"She's been trying to get hold of us all day. Harry says she came bursting into Auror Headquarters looking for you, looked as if she was about to spit fire, and when the Aurors told her you were away on compassionate leave she seemed quite offended by the notion!"

"Stupid cow." Dora muttered, shifting until she could bury her face in the crook of his neck. "I've never liked her..."

"This is serious, Dora." Remus pointed out warily, frowning up towards the ceiling. "If we don't respond within an hour or so she'll probably send somebody round to arrest us..."

"Yeah?" the Auror rolled onto her back so that she too could stare up at the ceiling. "Well if she wants to embarrass herself by trying to interrogate me she's welcome to give it a go! What sort of...of accusations does she think she can just fling around?! She's not got a shred of evidence! Can you imagine what they'll all say about her? If the press pick this up?"

"Do you want the press to pick this up?"

"No...I don't want the hassle of it. But then again...if news gets around...somebody might catch sight of those boys..."

"What would our friends say? What would you mother say?!"

"I don't know, love...but reading it in a newspaper would be no way to find out!" Sighing heavily Dora leant to bury her face in his shoulder again as she complained: "Oh Remus, what are we going to do?!"

"We'll have to go to the Ministry..."

"That's a waste of my time! Why should I sit in...in some room listening to that woman's ridiculous theories when I could be...be out looking for our son?!"

And at that moment there came the sound of a heavy fist pounding upon the front door downstairs, and as he allowed his eyes to drift closed for a despairing moment, Remus found himself wondering:

"Yes, my darling, but what other choice do you suppose we have?'